The once traditional mom, dad and the kids now make up just a quarter of Canadian households.

Instead, the family that gathers around the kitchen table is increasingly likely to be a same-sex couple, a common-law couple, a single parent, a stepfamily, a household with grown kids and grandparents, according to new data.

More Canadians are simply living alone.

And many young people are living with their parents into their 20s and putting off serious relationships.

Statistics Canada released its latest slice of numbers from the 2011 census on Wednesday focusing on families, households, marital status and living arrangements.

The census counted 9.4 million families, up 5.5 per cent over the previous count in 2006.

While married couples remain the predominant family unit at 67 per cent, the release paints a picture of a society in transition as traditional family structures give way to common-law couples and same-sex couples.

“Just a quarter of our households now are that traditional mom, dad, the kids and the dog at home. A lot of people still think that’s the Canadian family,” said Doug Norris, chief demographer at Environics Analytics.

“We have more households with couples without kids and a little over a quarter of the people living on their own.

“The Beaver Cleaver family is long gone,” added Norris, referring to the U.S. sitcom “Leave it to Beaver” and its romantic view of suburban family life in the 1950s.

Among the census families, common-law couples grew rapidly, up 13.9 per cent since 2006 compared to a 3.1 per cent increase for married couples and an 8 per cent rise for single-parent families. For the first time, common-law couples surpassed the number of single-parent families.

Common-law couples are most prevalent in the territories and in Quebec, where they represent one in three of all families.

And the census found that the number of children with common-law parents is in the rise while those with married parents is decreasing.

The number of same-sex couples showed a sharp rise, up 42.4 per cent to 64,575, attributed to the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2005. Of those, 21,015 were same-sex married couples and 43,560 were living common-law.

The 2011 census also counted stepfamilies for the first time, finding that one in 10 children live in a stepfamily.

Of the approximately 3.7 million families with children, 87.4 per cent were so-called intact families — two parents and their biological or adopted children — and 12.6 per cent, or 464,335 were stepfamilies.

Of these, 192,410 are what the agency described as “complex” stepfamilies — a child of both parents and a child of one parent from a previous relationship.

Norris said the numbers show Canadians’ evolving views toward marriage and family, along with increasing acceptance of same-sex couples.

“We saw divorces starting to rise many decades ago, remarriages as a result and with remarriage comes more blended families and stepfamilies,” he said.

University of British Columbia professor Mary Ann Murphy says family make-ups are an “ever-changing landscape.”

“What I think is different is this remarkable free choice of lifestyle without stigma,” said Murphy, who has a cross appointment on aging with the faculties of health and arts at UBC’s Okanagan campus.

“You choose your own style of diversity, whatever works for you and that’s acceptable.

“It’s not so much a crumbling family, more just a changing family mosaic and we seem to be adding a few different pieces to it as we go.”

The census data also show that more Canadians are living alone — 5.6 million people 15 years and older did not live in a census family. Thirteen per cent of this population lived alone, up slightly from 2006.

It also noted that couples with children at home continued to fall — 39.2 per cent compared to 44 per cent of couples who did not have children. These are the empty-nesters, the aging baby boomers seeing their grown children move away from home.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the census found that 92 per cent of seniors lived in private dwellings while 7.9 per cent lived in collective dwellings, such as residences or health-care facilities.

“Fewer seniors are living alone compared to a decade ago, particularly senior women and the reason for that we can attribute to changes in life expectancy,” said Anne Milan, a sociologist with demography division at Statistics Canada.

“Life expectancy for men is increasing rapidly so they are able to remain in couples until a later age.”

Statistics from 1961 show the evolution of the Canadian family. The number of families — married couples, common-law couples and lone-parent families — has more than doubled since 1961, to 9.4 million families from 4.1 families. But the proportion of married couples has dropped from 91.6 per cent to 67 per cent.

Since 1981, the number of common-law couples has more than quadrupled.

In 2011, lone-parent families made up 16.3 per cent of all families, double the share in 1961 when more childbearing took place within marriage and divorce rates were lower, Statistics Canada analysis shows. In 1961, 61.5 per cent of lone parents were widowed. By 2011, most lone-parents are divorced, separated or never married, while just 17.7 per cent were widowed.

Other census findings include:

• Among children under 14, 269,315 — or 4.8 per cent — lived in households that contained at least one grandparent. Of these, 30,005 lived in “skip-generation” families, with grandparents and not their parents.

• The census tallied foster children for the first time, counting 29.950 nationwide.

• Canadian families are getting smaller, due to the decline in the fertility rate. The average number of children per family was 1.9 in 2011, compared to 2.7 in 1961. Over the same time, the average number of people per family dropped to 2.9 in 2011 from 3.9 in 1961.

• There are 13,320,615 private households in Canada, up 1.8 million. One-person households were up 10.4 per cent. And for the first time, there are more single-person households (3.7 million) than couple households with children (3.5 million).

• Multiple-family households are prevalent in Brampton (11 per cent), Markham (8.1 per cent), Richmond Hill (5.4 per cent) and Mississauga (5 per cent). This could be the result of higher proportion of immigrants in the communities, Statistics Canada says.

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